


Wolf of Delusion

by Writer Awakened (WriterAwakened)



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Action, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Crimson Flower, Family, Friendship, Gen, No beta we die like...actually no that's too tactless in this case, Post-Game(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28844319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriterAwakened/pseuds/Writer%20Awakened
Summary: Crimson Flower post-game, certain students recruited. Four months after the war, Byleth receives a message asking for help eliminating a rogue swordsman who’d butchered a merchant band. They prepare themselves to fight a monster.
Kudos: 6





	Wolf of Delusion

_Whose hands tremble while holding a sword?_

Cold steel cut through warm flesh. Effortless. Thoughtless. Mindless. One slash after another, a blade arcing and falling quicker than an untrained eye could ever follow. One after the next, bodies fell to the grass, weapons tumbling from their hands. It never really changed. Every battle was exactly the same, however different it might be. Every one ended in a clean cut and a fleeting crescent lash of blood. No born fighter of any mettle ever surrendered, no matter how weak, no matter how unprincipled and ignoble they might be. So they died. To a one, they fell. There was no other way. Cold steel would remain cold. The warmth of flesh and the heat of blood would never cool until the moment of death, and even then the warmth lingered long enough to leave a corpse-strewn battlefield humid with the fog of war. There was no other way. No amount of reasoning or bargaining or pleading could stop cold steel from finding warm flesh. It was the answer to every question, the solution to every problem. It could be trusted implicitly when no one else could.

_What true swordsman shakes? What’s wrong with me?_

After the seventh dead, there were no more to kill, and so the swordsman sheathed his blade. In years past he would use a cloth to wipe the blood from his blade, but there was no good reason for him to bother any more. The iron blood would eat away at the bloodied iron, but if his sword blunted or corroded there would always be another to replace it.

The sky was gray. The thick, towering clouds had all but blotted out the sun but for a few straggling rays on the eastern horizon. The swordsman searched the merchants’ persons and found small slips of paper and a few small trinkets identifying them, which was all he needed. The wares, and the gold, and everything else they might have had, he left behind. He left their bodies there, in the grass by the roadside. Any luck and they’d be found by soldiers of the local defense, or another caravan of merchants, and their families would be notified. If not, maybe the rain would wash away the blood and time would sweep away their memories.

The swordsman laughed. He laughed because either way, it didn’t really matter.

\- O -

“I really hate to ask this of you, professor. I mean, really, _really_ hate to ask.”

Byleth had not expected to be summoned to the province of Faerghus by Sylvain, of all people, but there they were, at a small restaurant in a small town near the border of Gautier and Fraldarius territory. Curious but calm, they assuaged Sylvain and asked him what happened that was so important he’d needed their help so urgently.

“I have a favor to ask. Actually, it was a formal request from my father to the Adrestian, uh...council of lords? Ministry? I don’t know what it’s called. Boy, he didn’t waste any time in getting cozy with the imperial government, did he? Not that that’s a bad thing, or anything. No use trying to stay on board a sinking ship.

“Anyway, he wanted to keep it hush, but he couldn’t just let this incident slide...that’s why I wanted to talk to you about it.”

Byleth tilted their head to one side.

“A couple of days ago, a bunch of merchants and their bodyguards passing through the lands of House Gauti—sorry, the _estate of the Gautier family_ — the other day got themselves killed. By bandits, technically, but they didn’t steal anything from them. The only things that were missing were any kind of identification and one of the bodyguards’ swords.”

Sylvain sit back and took a long drink from his mug of ale. Byleth sat silently and waited for him to finished, deep in thought. When he’d finished, Sylvain belched and flipped his disheveled bangs back out of his eyes.

“And it was _a_ bandit. Singular. I don’t know all of the details. All I heard was that a few people saw a blue-haired swordsman walking away from the place they found the bodies.”

Byleth started. The two’s eyes met briefly, then Sylvain looked to the side distantly. The same pain that had been written on his face when he spoke of his family and how it had been destroyed by Crests now rewrote itself. If anything, it was inked even stronger and nearly indelible. His carefree smile had been torn down and his usual colorful mannerisms were strikingly absent.

“To be honest, at first my dad wanted me to take care of him myself. He said I was strong enough to take out a single bandit by myself. You know, an heir to House Gautier needs to be able to handle his own business, you know.” Sylvain paused and grimaced. “Agh, sorry, I did it again! We’re not really a 'noble house' anymore. It’s gonna take a little bit of time to get used to. Not that I mind things changing around here or anything.

“Anyway, I _was_ going to do it myself, but, heh, you know how these things go. A strapping young knight running around like his head’s been chopped off trying to hunt down one lowly wandering swordsman? Where’s the romance in that? Talk about a bad look for an ex-noble. That’s the sort of thing a mercenary should be doing.”

Sylvain laughed, his lips contorted in discomfort.

“...sorry, that was a lie. Honestly, it’s because I don’t think I can handle him. I’ve tried to stay sharp these last four months, but I know I don’t have a damn prayer of beating him. The only one I could think of who would be up to the job...was you. Figures, huh? So...will you do it?”

After a moment, Byleth nodded, and dolefully agreed to the task.

“Thanks, professor,” said Sylvain. “You always come through in the clutch. Same as always.”

Then, in a quiet voice, almost as an aside, “I can’t just ask the imperial army to handle this.”

There might have been more to the story than that, but Byleth thought better than to pry. Whether Sylvain couldn’t or wouldn’t do it was irrelevant. More than that, as soon as he’d begun explaining, Byleth knew intuitively that there were only two people alive on Fòdlan who were fit for the task. The duty had fallen to them, and they did not intend to shirk from it.

“You can talk to my father about the reward,” Sylvain said as he finished his drink and they both stood up. “He’ll probably pay you pretty well to forget this whole thing ever happened. And...be careful.”

After insisting no reward was necessary, they parted ways, and the erstwhile professor set off for the south.

\- O -

Somewhere in the north of Fraldarius territory, at the end of a scant but long trail of crumbs, Byleth found who they’d been looking for. In the small clearing in the middle of a secluded grove overgrown with ivy, they baited the trap. Where there was supposed to be a dangerous group of ex-knights turned to brigandage stood only the professor, waiting at twilight under dark gray skies to turn the tables on the “hunter.”

He walked into the trap and saw Byleth. Seeing his old professor, he flinched not even for a second, and placed his hand on the hilt of his sword as he approached.

“Felix.”

Sword still at their side, Byleth regardless watched the former soldier’s every slight movement carefully. Any sudden step, any sudden shifting of his hands and they’d only have a split second to react before his blade bit flesh.

The blue-haired swordsman continued to move forward until the two combatants were no more than ten paces apart.

“Why are you here?”

Byleth explained, briefly, simply, what they had heard. Of the unarmed merchants and their ill-equipped bodyguards, and their slaughter. Of the rumors of a cold man who took any job that ended in death.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Felix remarked when Byleth had finished. “Four months. I had a feeling you’d show up, but I didn’t think you’d lure me out here without me suspecting a thing. Let me guess.”

He drew his sword, and without hesitation Byleth drew theirs.

“You heard about a monster skulking around the empire, attacking unarmed merchants, and you knew you had to go exterminate it.” Felix clicked his tongue. A vacant smile wormed its way onto his face. “You just couldn’t help yourself. Fine. Take a good look, then.”

He brandished his blade, blackened by blood, less a sword than a hacksaw.

“I’m still the empire’s sword, now without an army to cut down. Someone needed to take the place of the boar in this world. Something even more vicious. A mad wolf. A wild animal.”

_Why am I still trembling? Why can’t I still my hands?_

“I’m already more dangerous and colder than the boar ever was. I’ve crossed a line I can’t step back over. So if you’re here to lecture me about the good old days, back when we were all still friends...”

Felix spat on the ground.

“ _Fuck you_.”

He turned his head up, his eyes leering down at Byleth, cold and dark and full of nothing.

“Don’t forget. You were the one who made me a monster. You and Edelgard. So if you’re not here to kill me, then you shouldn’t have come at all!”

Through Felix’s entire monologue, Byleth hadn’t let their guard down once. If they had, they would already have been dead. Their blades clashed together, with a concussion so strong it sent waves down both their spines. Stepping back, Felix lunged forward, his stab barely missing Byleth’s chest. A flick of his wrist and the blade sailed sideways through air, tearing away pieces of cloth. Again Felix struck, and when his blade was blocked he shifted his feet and slashed again, and again, and each time pushed Byleth further and further back on their heels.

“You have...yourself...to thank!” Felix said through grit teeth, breath heavy and thick in the cold air. Every movement of his blade was precise, landing exactly where he intended; even if it cut only air, it moved his foe into a position for a second strike, leaving no time or space for a riposte. He was even more formidable than Byleth had expected, and his skill was far beyond what it had been during the war.

_Just die._

One slash of his went errant, and it was the opportunity Byleth had been waiting so desperately for. They swung their blade upwards, darting at Felix’s chin, forcing the sellsword to pull back. Then every blow became a crash of steel on steel, this time the momentum behind Byleth as their combat pushed Felix further and further from the center of the clearing towards the edge of the thick forest where the tangle of roots and ivy had woven together. At last, with Felix reeling, Byleth drew blood, catching Felix on the shoulder, a line of blood splattering against the floor of fallen leaves.

_Agh! That—damn it! Got cocky._

Desperate, the next time their blades clashed, Felix threw his entire weight forward, his left arm clutching his right bicep and bracing his sword hand, in every sense imposing his will on Byleth’s sword.

_I’ll push through. I’ll find_ _a_ _weakness._

Finally, the professor relented, hopping several steps backwards,. Together they took a few moments to gasp down breaths as deep as they could—it might have been only seconds, and might have only been minutes, for all they could tell. Felix’s hands were beginning to numb from the constant reverberations of steel on steel, and his sword hand throbbed with pain from his death grip on the hilt. Every muscle in his body was taut, every bead of sweat on his brow ice cold and electrified. Byleth only watched, implacable as ever, betraying not a single thought or single weakness—like always.

_Always...always so damned nonchalant!_

“This...is where you die.”

Felix rushed forward, legs burning with exertion, but still enough to find the bounds to close the gap and find a small opening. His strike at Byleth’s hand nearly drew blood on the first go, and did on the second, slicing the professor on the reverse of their left arm. Unfazed, Byleth struck back, slashing horizontally, then vertically, locking Felix’s sword against his body as their blades again clashed and rang out. By now the numbness of the impacts had spread to his arms, tingling and burning and crying out for another moment of respite. When Felix had broken free, he lunged forward again and began to swing wildly, as fast as he could. His mind began to spin. His eyes slid out of focus just enough to miss the graceful arc of the professor’s sword, lashing through his left side, from his shoulder down nearly to his stomach. Felix cried out in pain.

_Why can’t I clear my mind? Why can’t I think clearly? Why can’t I—_

At the sight of the wound that had painted Felix’s doublet crimson and dripped steadily against the ground, Byleth naturally lowered their sword.

“I’m not— _dying_!”

Numb, wounded, dizzy and near-delirious with pain, Felix fought like a wounded animal. Only survival. His sudden slash cut Byleth across the chest, and his next was inches away from slicing Byleth’s throat. They jumped back and dug in their heels, answering Felix’s next strikes with steel and answering Felix’s look of anger and desperation and fear with a fearful look of their own.

_I won’t let you win! You were all wrong!_

“Die!”

Finally it was time to end it, and with a bloodcurdling cry, Felix lifted his sword over his right shoulder and brought it crashing down with every bit of strength he’d ever earned his entire life—and it still wasn’t enough. Before the blade hit home, Byleth’s sword cut upwards, slicing through Felix’s raised right arm and sweeping steel against tendon. With another primal yell, the sword fell out of Felix’s hand, and he clutched his arm in agony, staggering backward until he reached the edge thick wood, where a root buried in leaves caught him during his backpedal and pulled him ignominiously down to the earth.

_This is where I die? Here, alone? For nothing?_

A floating, detached shiver swept through Felix’s body. He lay supine, surrounded by the spirals of ivy and leaves left over from autumns past, and felt a cold deeper and more profound than winter’s chill settle over him. Now not only his hands, but his entire body trembled. He groped for his sword, nails digging around him. Clods of dirt stuck in his fingernails. His hands found neither hilt nor steel.

_Cold...so this is how he felt…_

Slowly, Byleth walked over to him, sword now sheathed, clutching at the wound on their chest, blood seeping from between their fingers.

The world was fading very slowly from Felix’s view. The blood pooled down his right arm, and down his right side, and his chest, and his stomach.

“That’s it...just like that...” At last he understood, or thought he understood. Why he trembled. Not only his hands. His entire body was shaking. The fear grasped him, and he convulsed trying to fight against it.

Byleth knelt beside him, and withdrew something Felix could not see from a small satchel.

_It’s a father’s duty to settle his child’s failures…_

_You’ve betrayed everyone!_

“Shut up...shut the hell up...” Felix closed his eyes. “Just...”

Byleth looked down, confused. They applied a salve first to the deep gash across Felix’s right side, eliciting several grimaces of pain with each application.

_You killed Rodrigue...your own father, Felix!_

_You will die here and now!_

_My foolish son!_

_I said I’d cut down anyone who stood in my way…_

“Tell me,” Felix finally said, looking up at the professor as they continued to treat his wounds. Byleth was seemingly unperturbed by the constant cacophony of voices now accusing him. He didn’t realize he was yelling. He needed to be heard over the others. He needed to be heard. “Why...why _you_? Why come here?”

Byleth looked briefly into Felix’s eyes before returning to their work. It was personal, they explained. It was a task that they could never, ever ignore.

“So stupid. I’ll... _never_ go back. I won’t die…

“...like Glenn.”

_Your own father, Felix!_

_Even my father. Even my friends._

_To die for your country...to give your life for your lord, Felix. It is the greatest honor any man could hope for._

_Even my father. Even my friends._

“And you’ve got...some nerve. You...made me. I gave up...everything...for you. You...and Edelgard...”

Their eyes met again. Byleth thought for a moment and finally answered.

“I’m sorry.”

Felix laughed in the face of the apology, and winced in the face of the ceaseless, throbbing pain. Every word, every utterance, every gasp for air hurt. His sight became a blur. Even the professor’s face was a haze of dark green and pink framed by gray clouds getting grayer by the moment.

_I won’t follow the boar._

_You’ve given me all the reason I need to kill you._

_I’ll never be like you. And I’ll never be like him!_

“Because of you...I can’t even die on Faerghus soil. Even...even the fucking boar...had that.

“Five years...almost six. I fought for you. Every day. Do you know...how many...

“...you made me...you made me...a monster.”

Behind dark eyelids, images of corpses. Corpses alive, corpses dead, corpses rising, corpses collapsing. All the battles he’d fought in those five long years danced in his head. All of them at once. He caught glimpses of them. Some of them were women. Some of them were cowards who died with scars on their backs. Some of them were friends. Some of them were family. Most of them were monsters. Most of them deserved it. All of them were human.

None of it had stopped him.

“I will...I will not...”

_I said I’d cut down anyone who got in my way._

_Even my father. Even my friends._

_Even the emperor. Even my brother._

_I’d even kill you, professor._

_You’ve betrayed everyone!_

_You’ve given me all the reason I need to kill you._

_Stop helping me. Stop helping me. Stop helping me! Stop—_

“ _helping me_! You’re going to kill me!” Felix screamed, writhing about on the ground, and lashing out at Byleth with both fists blindly. “Just like Dimitri! Just like Ingrid! Just like Glenn! _Just like my father_!”

Felix sat up, lightning strikes of pain surging through his body. He tried to stand up, but his body refused. Calmly, gently, Byleth pushed Felix back down, and his head slammed once more against the forest floor. He tried again to reach for words and none came. Instead, darkness fell over him and his consciousness forcibly took his will away.

\- O -

Everything was in flames. The streets were lined with burning eaves of the first houses to catch fire. The orange flames and the black soot choked the air and blotted out the evening sun. Every alley was consumed with fire. What people remained ran at half speed, and quarter speed, bodies wracked with coughs as the smoke clouded their lungs and spirited away their breath.

It was the first day his hands had ever shook holding a sword. That was the one day that happened to relive itself in his nightmares ever since the war’s end. It was the moment that had shaken him more than any other. Not the news of his brother’s pointless death and the last words he’d ever spoken to him that reverberated through his skull. Not the sight of Deirdriu strewn with the bodies of Alliance resistors, some of them fellow students and friends. Not the sight of his father looking up at him hatefully, Felix’s sword piercing through his chest and through to his back. Not the sight of Ingrid, falling to earth unceremoniously beside her mount. Not the sight of King Dimitri, riddled with arrows and punctures, or the executioner’s axe taking his head.

Felix never knew precisely why, and he never, ever allowed himself to even consider it. The faces of the fallen only left him cold. Empty. After all, what meaning was there at all in paying blood to tribute the dead? So what did the sight of Fhirdiad in flames say that all the voices of the dead could not?

All of it was stupid. He wanted to give so many blunt explanations to the dead. They’d no right to hold a grudge. They all stood upon the battlefield not to fight for something real, something grand. Not for the living. Not for a purpose. Most of them died for a piece of cloth or for a leader without a purpose. They all died without giving them a chance to live for something better. Each one of them died without having the guts to live for themselves or die for themselves.

The horses of fallen paladins were lain about over dismembered limbs. Empty hands lay severed on the stones. Entire arms broken at the elbow stuck out from under collapsed eaves. He couldn’t stomach seeing it, but he couldn’t help seeing it. Shards of bone stuck in shards of wood. Food stalls, road signs, archways; they all were in pieces and wreathed in mighty smoke. And all the while, the sickening roar of a crazed dragon pierced through the fog of war.

That was the day he knew—though he kept it well hidden from himself—that he’d crossed the line. The day he slew tens, maybe hundreds of former countrymen who threw their lives away for an ancient tyrant was the day he crossed that line. The day when he dealt the penultimate, crippling blow to the heartless monster who’d set the first half of his life ablaze and swallowed them with the jaws of hell was the day he crossed the line. The day his blade could taste the blood of the most immaculate and the most sinful was the day the line between the old him and the new had been trodden over and walked beyond. The day on which his killing became most heroic, most justified, most meaningful, was the day he crossed the line.

In his dreams, he was at school: a great monastery on a hill, but all around them was purgatory, a bottomless void that encircled the school like a moat. Glenn was his professor, and abode neither talking nor leaving—only listening. Every minute, one of Felix’s teeth fell out, and he hid them away shamefully before his brother could see. Every hour sitting in class was a lifetime of lessons from history to tactics, and naturally, lectures on honor and dying with dignity. Their father stood over Felix’s shoulder. Felix never looked back. Was his father smiling? Scowling? Prepared to strike him down? Prepared to embrace him?

In his nightmares, he returned to Fhirdiad and the city of ashes in his mind had been rebuilt only to burn down again, and again, and again.

After each, he woke up, covered in cold sweat, with trembling hands. They were both nightmares, different as they were.

\- O -

“Just tell me why.”

Felix sat up. A rainfall had visited the grove and wet the ground and diluted the bloodstains on his vest, but at some point it had stopped and the gray clouds had clear. Twilight had become late evening, and only the outline of a fallen sun remained on the horizon beyond a sky of pink and orange. Byleth was there. They knelt before him. Their expression was as inscrutable as ever, but by their standards, the look of concern was crystal clear.

“Why did you come here...if you weren’t going to just kill me?”

Felix examined his wounds. Moving still sent twinges of pain through his body, but the deep wounds along his right side and his shoulder had closed and scarred over as though they’d been there weeks already. Raising his dominant sword arm was a labor. It was going to be a problem even holding a sword, let alone even wielding one like a master swordsman again.

“Not going to answer? That’s fine...I already know the answer.”

Byleth did answer. There were a lot of people to whom they owed a lot that wanted to find him, to _know_ for sure.

Felix sucked in air through his teeth and clambered to one knee. His eyes darted around the grove. Understanding, Byleth grabbed his sword and threw it to him. He caught it with his left and used it to steady himself as he knelt.

“A lot of people, huh...who? Edelgard? Hubert? You?”

Suddenly, for a fleeting moment, he could have sworn he heard their voices answer, but they went silent.

“Ever since this war began, I killed for you...what am I good for now? Who would—”

“Sylvain.”

Felix raised his eyebrows and blinked quickly. A bitter smile cut his face. “Of course. That son of a bitch. He doesn’t understand. He turned against Dimitri when he saw what an animal he really was. He still doesn’t know who _I_ really am?...to hell with him. I don’t want or need his help. And I don’t want you around.”

The night chill settled in. Felix began to shiver. The biting cold was a powerful force: it sensed Felix’s weakness and bit down even harder.

“Why are there still people like you out there looking for me? Just leave me be. My family gave up on me, and so did my old friends. So why would you ever help a monster you helped create? Guilt? Or maybe you just don’t blame yourself for—”

Felix paused, and without warning began to laugh. It hurt. Everywhere it hurt to laugh. But he couldn’t stop laughing. The more it hurt, the more it made him laugh.

“Of course...of course you don’t blame yourself,” Felix said, nodding. “It was never your fault to begin with. Then that’s all the more reason for you to kill me. I don’t even trust myself. So why the hell should _you_? Since this war began, I’ve lost all the soldiers to sharpen my sword on. The only ones left to fight now are—”

“The war is over, Felix.”

Byleth reached out their hand towards Felix’s emphatically. They were going to heal his wounds, and their job was only half done. That was the measure of a comrade. It was the entire measure of loyalty.

At first, Felix looked shocked, a look that quickly turned to disgust. He refused their hand. Again, Byleth all but thrust their hand against his free right hand, and finally Felix clasped it and popped back to his feet. Felix sheathed his sword.

When Felix had finally found the strength to stand steady, Byleth hoisted his arm up around their shoulders and the two began to walk through the grove to where Byleth had tethered their wyvern.

“I tried to run away from people like you. People who care too much. You’re just like... _tch_. If I could’ve killed him myself, I would have. Like all the others. At least then I’d have...a better reason to keep hearing his damn voice.”

The professor lifted their former student up onto the wyvern, and Felix grabbed on tightly as they took to the air. Byleth explained they would take Felix to Edelgard. There was a lot to say, but she would hear his story and not pass judgment until the very last word.

“I’ll do what I can,” said Felix. Around the professor’s waist, his hands were trembling. “I don’t expect to be forgiven. I don’t _want_ to be forgiven. I just—I’m not going to die for nothing.”

Byleth nodded.


End file.
